I'm good at asking, but when it comes to answering questions I feel like a fool because I lack the skills and/or knowledge. Unfortunately I feel constrained to answer questions because otherwise I feel as if I am cheating on the principles of the site.

To make a long story short, I feel like a dumbass and get proven to be one by not being able to answer questions. There must be a way out of that psychological struggle.

Grats, you got yourself a question with more upvotes than answers! That's a great start to join the community. Very often giving good answers in here, just like anywhere else, is more about having the skills to blend in and use words rather than being the upmost expert on the subject. ;)
–
CawasDec 7 '10 at 16:08

8 Answers
8

The flip side of tinkertim's answer is that if people did not expect to get good answers, they would not come to the site to ask questions.

I would recommend starting small, choosing one specific tag where you are confident about your knowledge and posting reasonable answers that add something to the discussion even if your answer is not the first one or the most perfect.

To this date, my highest scoring answer is a quick analogy which I thought was clever but I did not expect that people would like it that much.

So, try your hand at a few questions in an area you know, put effort into your answers, don't post answers just to fish for votes and know that the site could not exist without a steady supply of both good questions and good answers.

I can relate to that. However, people visiting the site in the future with the same question as yours will be very grateful that you did ask, and there'll be some good answers. It's worth asking just for them.

Both asking good questions and answering well are valuable things on SO, and you shouldn't feel bad because you only do one of them well. The SO vision includes not only people who know stuff helping people who don't, but building up a knowledge base, and questions are a vital part of that.

In general, if you don't think you can come up with a helpful answer, don't try. Perhaps comment on the answers that are already there, if you have something to say. If you try to answer a question and fail badly, you're not really helping. Remember, also, that all of us were ignorant and intimidated once, and that's no disgrace.

But don't feel bad because you only do some useful things really well.

It's very hard to tell how valuable good questions are to the Stack Overflow community. This is because you can not document a negative - you can not hope to know how many people had your question and found valuable answers without having to ask.

There is no chicken / egg contemplation here, Stack Overflow is fueled by questions. If there were no questions there would be no answers.

I know that you feel like you want / should participate on both ends of the spectrum, however you should realize that quality, well articulated questions are worth twice their weight in gold.

In my opinion, the 'one way' effect is attributed only to people who constantly search Stack Overflow to get what they need, but do not participate in either fashion. Really, please don't feel like a leech for asking good questions, they make the site work.

The way out of your psychological struggle, as you put it, is to realize that (so far) although possible to do there is no "score" based on:

Days or times logged in vs questions asked / questions answered/ searches performed (and or results read)

If the good folks running Stack Overflow believed that was important, and somehow was contributing to the success of the site, it would be getting tracked and prominently displayed with the user name like reputation, badges, etc.
Since there is no Q/A ratio, etc., there should be no struggle.

Sometimes a good question contributes a lot more than providing many answers.

In fact, it's usually harder to pose a question than answering, much like the example I like to use with libraries and web searches.
All the information is out there, if you know what you are looking for and how to look for it.

Since you are on subject of feelings, there have been times that I tried to find the answer to a SO question myself by doing a search on Google/Dogpile/etc. and, sure enough, the answer is out there.

I believe SO is used by some/many/most as a shortcut way of receiving an answer quicker than a search. On the bright side, this accumulates a whole bunch of direct Q and A threads which is what makes SO successful to the good folks running Stack Overflow.